Spend $16.99 so you can wear this to your grave
Posted on 07/22/2005 11:06:07 AM PDT by BigFinn
Reacting to the NYPD's announcement Thursday afternoon that police would randomly—but routinely—search the bags of commuters, one concerned New Yorker quickly created a way for civil libertarians to make their views black-and-white. In a few outraged moments, local immigrant rights activist Tony Lu designed t-shirts bearing the text, "i do not consent to being searched." The minimalist protest-wear can be purchased here, in various styles and sizes. (Lu will not get a cut. The shirts' manufacture, sale, and shipment, will be handled by the online retailer. Lu encourages budget-conscious New Yorkers to make their own and wear them everywhere.)
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had announced the legally obvious—that New Yorkers are free to decline a search and "turn around and leave." But Lu, who is a lawyer at Urban Justice Center, warned that even well-intentioned cops could interpret people's natural nervousness or anger as "reasonable suspicion." The possibility of unjustified interrogation and even arrest is real, Lu said.
Although police promised they would not engage in racial profiling, Lu said that, as with all street-level policing, people of color and poor immigrants would be particularly vulnerable, especially if encounters lead to arrests.
And that's just the male readers! ;-)
If they make a Spanish and Arabic version, it'll be easier to spot the bad guys.
Boy that was fast! Just another guy trying to make a buck...
They like being cops and doing the right thing, but they do have the brains to realize this is going to be a cluster*&ck and a half, if they stop arabs or muslims, or anyone not white, they'll get in trouble and if they stop white folks and that person files a complain, they'll still get in trouble.
Its asking someone to do the job with one hand behind your back, they already know how this turns out, and they also know how confrontational folks are over the dumbest things.
NYC is lucky no one becomes a cop for the money, you actually have got to want to do this, no one, ever becomes a cop in this city because of the pay or benefits.
Do they have any thoughts on more effective tactics? Perhaps they need to express those thoughts to their commanders.
Scary thinking there my friend.
You can save money on letters and just write "I Support Terrorism" on your shirt.
Not a problem. But you forfeit the right to complain if a bomb goes off in the subway.
Walk... or should you try and force your way on... DIE!
And these will be the first idiots to whine that they're not being protected if something ever did happen. Not only whine, but sue. They're nothing but parasites.
You're right!
I wonder why the framers of the Constitution didn't realize that?
</sarcasm>
Random searches are, without doubt, unreasonable, meaning it cannot be reasoned that they will detect bombers by random searches.
Therefore, they are a violation of the 5th Amendment.
If your respect for the Constitution is so low that you consider anyone who stands up for it a moonbat, then you're . . .
(remainder of sentence self-censored)
Of course, you do realize there's nothing in this scheme that actually will make you safer, right?
Expensive and rare things, trained dogs. They aren't stamped out in Chevrolet trunklid factories.
Lu must be a member of DU, they don't know how to use capitalization either.
Apparently, these New Yorkers have forgotten they don't have to give their consent in order to be bombed by terrorists.
Frankly, I think that the only thing wrong with searching bags is the stupidity of making it random.
It's politically correct, sure, but a waste of my grandma's time.
Or, to put it another way:
"If you have done nothing wrong, comrade, then you have nothing to fear."
- Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria (1899 - 1953), chief of the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD) under Stalin.
Something like 3.5 to 4 million passengers ride the NYC mass transit system every work day. Do you really thing that randomly searching (or even selectively searching based upon profiles) a couple thousand people a day is going to discourage a person from blowing up atrain or bus if that is their mission? Get real.
I had posted that it IS dangerous thinking. For some reason it posted my response in italics. Preview looked fine.
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